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“I’m so sorry,” she said, words quiet, but hitting me square in the chest.
“It’s okay,” I said, my tone even, despite the lump in my throat. “It was a long time ago. I never knew my mother. She died giving birth to me. My father died when I was six. Hit and run.” I shrugged. “I don’t remember much about him, but he was a good man.” I took a breath. “My foster parents were great, so I was lucky.” The lie was practiced and I usually uttered it without thought or guilt, but it was rancid on my tongue.
Lying to these people felt entirely wrong, but it was necessary, considering everyone was truly sorry for my loss. Plus, I was pretending to be in love with their son. What was one more lie?
“Well it’s a good thing you met our Duke then,” Harriet intercepted. “We’ve always been too much family for just these two boys. We’ve got plenty left over for you.”
I would’ve been able to handle the moment if Harriet hadn’t spoken. Or even if she had and Duke’s hand wasn’t on my thigh. Or maybe if I hadn’t actually liked every one of these people, if I didn’t wish with everything I had that I could actually belong with them. That someone like Duke would actually want me.
But this was the perfect storm, for lack of a better metaphor, and it was their kindness and warmth that broke me down.
My knife and fork hit the plate with a clatter. I moved quickly, pushing my chair upward and losing Duke’s touch. That was a good thing, I told myself.
“I’m so sorry, if you’ll excuse me,” I muttered, through tears and shame.
Then I bolted.
I actually ran from the table, like some dramatic heroine in any one of the movies I’d been in.
Duke followed me.
And I really didn’t want him to. I definitely didn’t expect him to. I knew that life was not like the movies, that the man didn’t usually chase the girl who ran away. Real-life men weren’t like that.
I was quickly realizing, however, that Duke was unlike any real-life man I’d ever encountered.
I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t that cliché of course.
I was pacing.
Treading tracks in the carpet of the room that I still considered “ours” in this house.
Duke didn’t stop me, didn’t say anything. He just quietly closed the door and watched me pace.
At first, I tried to ignore it. I figured he might leave if I kept ignoring him. But it didn’t really work that way.
He was trying to play a game of emotional chicken with me, just standing there staring. Usually, I’d be able to win at such a game since I held this part of myself as close to my chest as someone like me could.
Of course, the media had dug up details about my background. But as soon as I got enough money to do so, I hired a professional “fixer” to bury parts I wanted buried and alter parts I didn’t need in the public eye.
Such a thing worked.
You couldn’t erase history. But if you had enough money, you could change it.
So the media knew some of my past—the carefully cultivated version.
That I’d been orphaned at a very young age, been lucky to be adopted by a young couple who couldn’t conceive naturally. They had given me a happy, healthy childhood. They’d tragically died just before I made it big—convenient so they couldn’t give any interviews or pose for photos with their daughter.
The real ones, the ones who were unfortunately still alive and well weren’t really ones to follow Hollywood starlets. And even if they did, I had a new name, new nose, and sufficient cosmetic alternations to my face and body that they’d never recognize me. Even if I didn’t do all of that, they’d never looked hard enough at me as a child to pinpoint me as an adult.
No one knew the truth beyond the people I paid to make it go away and the people that were involved.
I’d planned on it staying that way until the day I died.
But here was Duke. Staring at me.
I stopped pacing, stared back. I wanted to glare but I didn’t have it in me.
“I don’t remember my father,” I said. “Not what he looked like, at least. Not from memory. I can recall the photos I’ve seen of him. I can tell you what a one-dimensional version of him is like. Dark hair. Extraordinary mustache. Smile on his face and in his eyes. But I can’t say what he looks like in motion. How tall he was. None of that. I can’t even really remember him at all. Sometimes I get snatches, like how he used to do my hair.”
I squinted into the past, tried to call up one of the precious few images I had of the man.
